With Freedom Comes Wings
by hikomokushi
Summary: The man can’t sing—can’t even whistle a tune. But Tenten feels his song is the prettiest she knows. [NejiTen][drabble]


**Title:** With Freedom Comes Wings  
**Author:** Hiko Mokushi  
**Pairing:** Neji x Tenten  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** Kishimoto-sensei owns Naruto.  
**Summary:** The man can't sing—can't even whistle a tune. But Tenten feels his song is the prettiest she knows.

**Author Notes:** Really. . . messed up stuff. I'm not even sure if _I_ understand this. xD This is the stuff that happens in my brain at three o'clock in the morning when I can't sleep. I'm actually supposed to be working on _Picture Trends_, and _Sins for Me_ (a smutty _Twilight_ fanfiction for my friend Chelsea, that I'm "supposed" to have done for Christmas. Haha.)

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_But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams,  
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream.  
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied,  
so he opens his throat to sing._

_The caged bird sings  
with a fearful trill  
of things unknown,  
but longed for still;  
and his tune is heard  
on the distant hill,  
for the caged bird  
sings of freedom.  
— "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by __Maya Angelou_

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"You're as bad as Shikamaru!" she snickers, covering her mouth with one hand; pointing at his misfortune with the other. "Watching the clouds, Neji?"

The young man grunts and without warning throws a gentle fist that isn't so gentle.

It catches Tenten in the shoulder, but there is no pain in the attack and she rolls with it—allowing the force to bowl her over backwards, off the tree-branch. She plummets to the earth, aware completely of the sudden look of shock upon the pale shinobi's face as she grins at him momentarily in her fall.

The ground rushes up to swallow her, spitting her back up only after the fluffy, white snow begins to settle again.

It doesn't matter, as the snow that blasts her face and skims up her coat quickly fills the hole her body made in the drift. She does not bother to brush her hair from her face, merely lies against the ground and laughs. She instantly regrets, however, the way her laughter brings tears to her eyes, for they freeze on contact with the air—causing her lashes to stick together awkwardly.

Tenten is highly amused by the strange look on his face—an incomplete swirl of worry, annoyance, shock and embarrassment. "You were," she gasps, clutching at her stomach with frozen hands.

She hates gloves.

It makes it far too hard for her to grip any sort of weapon with much competency.

"Trying to count the blackbirds again?"

Only when he is kneeling in the snow next to her does she think about how much safer it would be to not laugh in his face.

The Hyuuga lifts a large handful of snow above her head, dropping it onto her face.

Tenten sputters and leaps at him, tackling him to the ground in a childish, playful sort of way. He'd feel awkward if this were anyone else—her body on his, fingers tangled in his hair, as he lies sprawled across the frozen ground. He tries to form words with his bluing lips.

The brown-haired weapon's mistress sighs and lays her head against his chest; his heart beats furiously under her ear.

"I never knew you sang, Neji," she sighs, trying to catch her breath.

Neji is still beneath her, allowing her to thread fingers delicately through his hair as though he were a doll or a dog. "I don't," he mutters, finally pushing at her as he sits up. He only succeeds in settling her uncomfortably into his lap, her legs spread on either side of his waist. "You don't know what you're talking about. The cold has frazzled your brain."

Tenten grins. "Yes, well, you're not very _good_," she says in a stage whisper, patting his head lightly, "but it's very pretty."

"It's not pretty." The dark-haired man is thankful for the snow frosting his face or else he'd have to explain his blush.

"It's a pretty song." Chocolate-coloured eyes blink and she shuffles off of him. He finds he misses the warmth of her body more than he should. "Who taught it to you?"

Neji glances away.

She instantly feels sorry—more over the idea that she made _him_ feel awkward than her knowing it has something to do with _family_. "You don't have to answer, Neji," she whispers softly, so that he has to lean fractionally closer. "I'm sorry."

_He_ instantly feels sorry.

He never wants to hear those words come from her mouth again.

"It was something my mother sang to me," says Neji, shaking snow from his long, dark-brown hair. "I don't remember the words, or the tune, much."

Tenten's body leans forward of its own volition, and she settles in his lap once more, tugging his hitai-ate from him, lying her lips against the pale seafoam-green tattoo that stretches its length. "I like it when you sing," she whispers, lowering her face momentarily so that she could look into his pale lavender orbs. Before she can notice, the ground is once again at her back.

The snow bites through her clothes, now beginning to soak, but finds she doesn't mind.

The way Neji's hands hold her frozen fingers above her head, the way his lips move against her own, she truly believes that she can fly. Twin dragons be damned—give her the Hyuuga prodigy and she can lift herself from the earth as though she weighed nothing and it felt ten times as good as her weapon scrolls surrounding her.

"We can't do this," he says against her neck, and she nods her head absently, a freed hand trailing down his chilly back. His voice is gasps. "I am. . . my fate, it's already been decided." He pulls momentarily back and she whimpers slightly.

His eyes bore into hers. "We discussed this. . . _please_. . ."

Tenten is sick of the way he seems to believe that because he can't promise her, she'd want it any other way.

"Is Hinata strong?" she snaps, legs sliding about his waist to flip them over and his back presses into the snowdrift, dark hair haloing around him. "Is Naruto destined for greatness? Your fate is bullshit." Her lips brush against his once more and their rosy, not blue.

"Everybody gets a song, Neji."

The smile is bright across her face, because she can feel his hands on her body, and she shivers against the cold.

"The problem is you refuse to sing." She chuckled. "How many birds are in the sky, Neji, beyond those clouds, up by the sun? I bet you see eight; but there'll be _nine_. So what that your voice is flat? Fight to see that last blackbird."

"Fuck the blackbirds."

Her back is against the ground for the third time that day—but he's smirking from above her.

"I want to see the _sun_."


End file.
